China Tag

Assassin’s Creed, for all its various bugs and glitches in the previous game, is going nowhere. Ubisoft’s flagship brand is as strong as it ever was, with various games on the way that have been in development for years now. The next game in the series is set in Victorian England and is tentatively dubbed Assassin’s Creed Victory. But what lies beyond the top hats and cobblestones in that franchise? Quite possibly a trip to the East, at long last.

Last year, one of my favorite gaming experiences was Mark of the Ninja. It was so well polished with some of the best stealth gaming you can get. Assassin's Creed Chronicles: China was inspired by that, and we will see more along the same lines.

The Xbox One is doing dismally in Japan. At last count, the system had only sold 1314 units in the last week for a total of around 31,116 units since launch. That’s terribly depressing, but you might put that down to nationalism. Japan’s always favoured homegrown systems. The truth though, is that the other systems – the ones from Japan – aren’t doing all that well at home either, each selling through fewer than ten thousand systems in the last week.

Diablo III might have had a mixed reception from die hard fans on release, but its expansion, Reaper of Souls improved the game by a large margin. Its annoyingly addictive with all its demon killing and odd legendary drop here and there. China may be missing out on the latest journey through Sanctuary, but not for long! Blizzard are looking to bring the clicky action to the east.

Good old American McGee - despite his patriotic sounding name, the veteran game developer in charge of Spicy Horse lives in Shanghai and has some rather specific thoughts about Microsoft's chances at success in China. They aren't too optimistic, and they hit the nail right on the head.

Australia always seems to be the perfect punch line for any scenario, and their handling of games certification might make the rest of laugh while our Australian friends cry. Now we can say with certainty that our dear Stephen will have an easier time getting cool games than people in at least one country.

As anyone in the local cosplay scene will tell you, getting your dream costume together ain’t cheap. And it’s not just cash either that can be a barrier, as most folks these days don’t have time, cash or the patience needed to learn the skills necessary for this hobby. One company wanted to make a few bucks off of Iron Man fans though, with 3D printed suits. Until Marvel dropped Mjolnir on them.

While a bunch of countries may not allow certain games past their borders, consoles are pretty much allowed to come in as they please. Unless its China. That massive country has had a 13 year ban on anything that they didn’t approve of. But its finally been lifted. Sort of.

Because waiting until next year for an Xbox one is quite frankly for chumps. And chumpettes. Back at E3, Microsoft got flak for duping folks into believing that they were playing Xbox One games on the actual console, when it was a similar-specced PC all along. Still consoles rule in my opinion. And if you can’t beat them, why not join them?

We’ve covered the exodus from Epic Games already (here, here and here) and I’ve always wondered if it is in relation to another company taking over Epic Games. We do know that the Chinese company, Tencent, bought a minority shareholding last June but what we didn’t know is that the word minority was very misleading.

It’s well known that China isn’t the strictest country in the world when it comes to abiding by copyright laws or protecting intellectual property. But even I was amazed that they’ve created an entire theme park based on World of Warcraft - and yet it is entirely unofficial.

Ever been on the receiving end of a tongue-lashing for playing way too many vidjeo gamez? At some point, we’ve all been told to get off the PC/console and to go outside and breath in some noxious fresh air, or even worse, get a J-O-B. And then you get this dad, who took things one step further.

China, continuing its run of autocratic censorship has now banned â€“ and tears are streaming down my face as I write this â€“ vulgar and explicit material for use in online advertising. Sex and violence â€“ as we know â€“ sell things, but it looks as if theyâ€™ll no longer be used to sell online games in China.

Chinaâ€™s Ministry of Culture has made it so that boobs can now longer be used to advertise popular online games like Dahua Xuanyuan, Evony, Kingory and the like.